Etching Saint Hyacinth of Poland by Johan Sadeler I, 16th century

Etching Saint Hyacinth of Poland by Johan Sadeler I (Brussel 1550 - Venice 1600). The Sadelers were a family of Flemish artists, mainly reproduction engravers, active throughout Europe between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The style of the family members is very similar and not always easily distinguishable but for three generations, moving from Holland to Italy, stopping in Germany and Prague, these engravers, publishers and print dealers played a central role in the dissemination of images. From 1572 Jan/Johan worked in Antwerp, the world center of printing, and also became a master of the Guild of St. Luke. With his younger brother Rafael the Elder he initially moved to Cologne but the turmoil of the Dutch revolt forced the Antwerp artists to move and so the Sadeler family came to Italy in 1593, specifically to Venice where they opened a print shop. The cult of Saint Hyacinth, sanctified by Clement VIII in 1594, spread widely between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Jacko Odrovaz was a Polish preacher, born in Silesia in 1183 and died in Krakow in 1257, after meeting in Italy with Dominic of Cuzman he decided to become a Dominican and received the order to spread the Dominican order in Eastern Europe. He founded the convents of Gdansk, Krakow, Friesach and Kiev, he favored the union of the Eastern and Western churches. In Kiev, during an attack by the Tartars, it is said that the Virgin appeared to him and asked him to bring a statue of her to safety. This print is taken from an altarpiece, now in the Louvre Museum (Louvre), commissioned by the Emilian Turrini family to Ludovico Carracci in 1594 for the family chapel in San Domenico in Bologna depicts exactly the apparition of the Virgin. Compared to the painting, the background appears simplified, among the swollen clouds there are no angels but cherubs' heads, and the tombstone that occupies the left wall in the painting disappears in the engraving. However, the words written on it now come out of the Virgin's mouth "Gaude fili Iacinte quia oraziones tuae / gratae sunt filio meo, et quidquid ab eo / per me petiris impetrabis." The Virgin is comfortably seated on a cloud, wrapped in her draped dress, the Child Jesus standing next to his Mother looks at the saint kneeling on the right who, with his arms in a sign of devotion, listens to and observes the divine figures. The silvery atmosphere obtained thanks to the controlled use of the burin, areas of shadow built with equidistant parallel lines, the use of non-engraved areas in correspondence of the surfaces of the drapery affected by the light, give alive solemnity to the composition. Signature at lower left: "J. Sadeler sculp. Venetiis". Beyond the image two lines in Latin "S.Iacinctus Polonus, S. Dominici socius et discipulus, et ordinis Praedicatorum/primus in septentrione fundator". Excellent impression, fresh and well contrasted. Excellent state of preservation. Minimal margins beyond the beat of the copper. Watermark: half moon. Bibliography: Another copy is kept at the Casanatense Library in Rome.